This Is Worth Fighting For: Katie and Tracy

Last week I shared the first of five of this series: This Is Worth Fighting For. Today I am beyond honored to share the story of Katie and Tracy.

To learn more about the prompting and heart behind this series, please see the first post here.

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Tracy and I were married in May of 2010. That August I was diagnosed with endometriosis via laparoscopic surgery. With that diagnosis came talk of children and the trouble I would face. I always saw myself as a mom, before anything else, and now a doctor is telling me it might not be possible?

Nobody can prepare you for the weight you feel knowing you are broken. I’m a woman – my body is made to produce children. Not mine. Not without help. You aren’t prepared for the emotional burden you carry. You also aren’t prepared for what it does to your marriage. Getting pregnant was our only focus. We had a window – it had to happen. The stress it put on both of us was unreal. We fought, we cried – it was work. Marriage shouldn’t be this hard! Thinking back, we lost so much time. We should have been having fun, traveling, being carefree. Instead, we spent our time talking about doctor appointments, ultrasounds, blood draws and injections. It consumed us.

Thankfully, our infertility story has a happy ending. Two, actually. Levi Brandon was born in October 2012 after four rounds of Clomid. Lucas John was born in December 2014 after another procedure, too many rounds of Clomid/Femara and an IUI. We did lose one baby in-between, and not a day goes by that we don’t think about that sweet little life and what it could have been.

So when I look at our photo now, I see home. I see comfort and trust. Tracy still embraces me the same way, forehead to forehead, and it’s just as comforting now as it was then. He was everything I needed during those times of infertility – strong, compassionate, forgiving. He’s still everything we need as a family. We aren’t the same people we were in that photo, but I can smile when I say that. This is our story and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Katie and Tracy

Married May 22, 2010